IDABEL — One federal lawsuit filed against the McCurtain County Jail Trust and a former jail administrator was dismissed last week, but a separate lawsuit against Sheriff Kevin Clardy and several members of the Sheriff’s Department and jail staff is still active.
Marion Allen Whitten Jr. alleged that in January 2022 a McCurtain County jailer restrained him in a chair and hit him in the ears. Whitten also claimed that six months later he was pepper sprayed while in isolation and was not allowed to shower off for half an hour.
Named in the lawsuit filed in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court were Larry Hendrix, a day shift supervisor and a night shift supervisor.
The case was filed Feb. 14 but was dismissed July 13 by U.S. District Judge John Heil III because Whitten failed to pay a requisite filing fee and failed to inform the court “of his change of address.”
Whitten filed the case while he was confined in the Choctaw County Jail. A letter was mailed to that address on April 12 by the clerk of the Muskogee federal court, informing Whitten he needed to complete and submit to the court a form identifying each of the defendants he cited; the U.S. Postal Service returned the unopened letter 12 days later.
Heil dismissed the case “without prejudice,” which means Whitten can refile the case later if he fixes the errors previously cited by the court.
Hendrix, the McCurtain County jail administrator, was among several county officials – including McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, County Commissioner Mark Jennings, and Sheriff’s Department Investigator Alicia Manning – who were secretly recorded making violent and racist remarks during a county commissioners’ meeting in March.
The discussions included murdering the publisher of the McCurtain Gazette newspaper and his son and burying their bodies, reminiscing about lynching Black people, and joking about a woman who was killed in a house fire.
The Jail Trust opted May 2 to place Hendrix on paid leave rather than fire him. Jennings resigned, but Clardy remains Sheriff and chairman of the Jail Trust and, so far as is known, Manning is still on the county payroll.
In a separate matter, Eric Shawn Ray alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2020 that McCurtain County jail personnel denied him medical care when he was in pain and passing blood. That case is still active, court records indicate.
Ray, 49, filed suit in Muskogee’s federal court against Clardy, “transport officer” Tom Pittman, “jail administrator” Russ Miller, an unidentified jail nurse, a jailer and a jail supervisor.
Ray’s criminal career started 30 years ago in southeastern Oklahoma, records of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections show.
He has been convicted in McCurtain County of grand larceny, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, second-degree burglary, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He also has been convicted in Tulsa County of possession of a stolen vehicle, false personation, eluding police, and motor vehicle theft. Currently he is serving a 30-year prison sentence for a 2019 McCurtain County conviction for domestic assault and battery.